SHAFAQNA (International Shia News Association)- Massachusetts State Police on Thursday arrested 29 people who stopped traffic on two sections of a major highway into Boston during the morning rush hour to protest the recent killings by U.S. police of unarmed black men.

Protesters stopped traffic north and south of Boston during the morning rush hour, officials said. The protesters in Milton, to the south of the city, chained themselves to concrete barrels on the roadway.

“Our nonviolent direct action is meant to expose the reality that Boston is a city where white commuters and students use the city and leave, while black and brown communities are targeted by police, exploited and displaced,” organizer Katie Seitz said in a statement.

A wave of sometimes violent protests spread across the United States last year after grand juries in New York and Missouri declined to bring criminal charges against white police officers in the killing of unarmed black men.